Wellbeing

When considering the wellbeing of our young people, at Sandringham we feel it is important to promote positive wellbeing at any given opportunity. Although this far from an exhaustive list, we do this through assemblies, our lifelong learning curriculum (PSHE), mentoring, events such as Fit for Life week, House events and Extended Learning Days. Form tutors are the key members of staff when it comes to promoting positive wellbeing and will always be on hand to support students to develop in to happy and healthy young adults.

At Sandringham, our pastoral care system is designed to support students with a range of experiences that they may face. Sometimes, we may need to help students when they are suffering from poor wellbeing, whether that be emotionally, psychologically, physically or socially, and there are number of ways both within the school and by utilising services outside of school that we can do this. Please contact the school to have a conversation with a member of the pastoral team should you want to find out more.

Peer mentoring

Sometimes it is appropriate for the pastoral team to foster a relationship between students so that they can support one another. More often than not this is a student from an older year group supporting those lower down the school, but these mentoring partnerships are set up very much on a needs basis. The needs on the student needing support are usually ‘low level’ and we feel that they benefit from hearing from another individual closer to their age that may have experienced similar issues.

Staff mentoring

If the needs of a child are slightly more significant and require an adult to support them, the pastoral team will work to develop a mentoring partnership between a student and their chosen adult in the school. This mentoring will normally take place once a week but can be on a needs basis, and staff mentoring is usually appropriate for students whose academic studies or social wellbeing are beginning to affect their happiness or wellbeing.

Mindful mentoring

The Mindful mentoring programme is a more specialist mentoring system for students that are likely to require external agency support for their wellbeing, but maybe are waiting or unable to access the support when the need is great. It is made up of a group of pastoral staff who a trained to support students with more significant needs.

Support for Young Carers

We are aware of the impact that being a young carer can have on our students and as such, have developed a programme for them to be supported. The structure of which is direct access to support from the pastoral team or a school counsellor and numerous fun activities throughout the year whereby they can feel supported by staff members and each other.

The Equality Group

The Equality Group was set up by students, for students. It is an open group of students from Key Stages 4 and 5 that meet once a week to discuss any issues to do with equality that they wish. Supported by a school counsellor, they discuss many topics to do with gender, sexuality, race, disability, age to name but a few. Often students who are suffering from poor social wellbeing find this group of great support.

School counsellors

At Sandringham, we utilise the service of 2 external counsellors that hold weekly specialist counselling sessions with students. This is a confidential, targeted therapy service that students can access to support them often with significantly poor emotional or psychological wellbeing.

The following is a list of external agencies that the school works with to support the wellbeing of our young people. These are agencies that support with a wide range of needs. There are also others that we can utilise that are more specific in terms of needs. Please feel free to contact a member of the pastoral team at school to discuss any of these further.

School nurse team

The school nurse team is available to support young people with a range of wellbeing needs that centre on health and physiological wellbeing. Referrals can be made by parents, schools and the GP and can be done so by accessing the website at the following link

There is also a ‘Chat Health’ service which is a text messaging service for all young people to access confidentially. It is available Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm. Young people can message for advice on all kinds of health issues such as sexual health, emotional health and wellbeing, bullying, healthy eating and any general health concerns.

The text number is: 07480 635050

YC Hertfordshire

YC Hertfordshire is a service which provides youth work projects and programmes, information, advice, guidance, work related learning, outdoor education and support for young people. Nicky Honeywell is our Personal Advisor in school and she can be accessed via student services.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

An external agency that supports students with a broad spectrum of wellbeing needs. It can be accessed by seeking a referral from a GP, or in some cases a referral from a member of the pastoral team at school. In order to support students completely, it is essential that school is aware of any referral that has been made to CAMHS so that we can work together to support the young person.

Education Support Teams for Medical Absences

Occasionally, a young person’s wellbeing can be poor enough for them to be unable to attend school. The ESTMA team support young people who are unable to at­­­­­­tend school temporarily because of medical reasons, whether that be emotional, psychological or physical. The teams work closely with the school to minimise the disruption to the child’s education and to support their re-integration as soon as possible. As well as schools the team works with parents, the young people and other professionals to ensure children and young people’s education continues as normally as possible.